this is a crisis created by private equity firms who’ve spent hundreds of billions hovering up every kind of housing stock across the country, as well as trailer parks and apartment complexes
Then, they’ll do what they always do: squeeze every last dollar out of the asset — then they’ll leave hollowed out towns/neighborhoods with destroyed housing stock when they’re done and then demand huge tax breaks for their ill-gotten gains.
Unregulated capitalism is social darnwinism writ large.
sure, do all that. But also: build more effin' housing. Build it sustainably: full walkability & bikeability, dense enough to support local shops & services for daily needs within walking distance, dense enough and with a structure to make quality transit a real thing, and with parks etc.
We also need to ban corporations from buying single-family homes.
I was told a while back that Meta was on a buying spree in and around our neighborhood, buying up houses with cash, pushing real living and breathing people out of the market.
@riking that is to say: construction rules & inspections are a must. That last major earthquake in Turkey? the city that handled it well, few building collapses etc, they actually had inspectors that did their jobs and politicians that backed them up.
This isn't "truth," this is NIMBY bullshit masquerading as social policy. He's proposing taxes on rentals, but not on home ownership, so renters will end up paying more than homeowners. Then he repeats the canard about vacant housing, when American housing vacancy rates are low; New York has a regular housing survey with a line item for units that are vacant because they're held for occasional or recreational use, and they're 1% of the supply. Less NIMBYism, more housing construction.
"Poison pill" means the taxes are so great on the rental owners that it becomes untenable to own a house just to rent it to others. That doesn't increase rents, it increases available housing supply for people to own a home that the can live in. He's proposing a tax so people can become homeowners.
@RedOct @Alon but it doesn’t make sense even in the best case scenario for everyone to own a home. There are times when renting is a better option. But it does make sense to have vacant housing available for use one way or the other. People do hoard units in expensive cities and keep them off market. People have second homes they only use a little. Cities have tried taxing them, but not enough.
@maccruiskeen @RedOct People don't actually hoard dwellings in meaningful numbers, is the point. In New York, 58,000 units were held off for seasonal, recreational, or otherwise occasional use in 2023, down from 2017 - but there are 3.7 million units citywide, for a 1.6% rate. nyc.gov/assets/hpd/downloads/p…
that wouldn’t by itself solve all the problems. But 50,000 apts newly available would certainly have an effect. That’s housing that already exists but misappropriated.
@maccruiskeen @RedOct The number is down in half since 2020; it's not visible in rents. Annual housing approvals citywide (see socds.huduser.gov/permits/) are around 20,000-30,000; at Tokyo or Seoul rates, they'd be around 100,000. That's what's needed, rather than populist attempts to eliminate apartment renting as an option.
@Alon @RedOct I’m not for eliminating renting. I’m for getting more units on the market. Cities can do more than one thing to accomplish that; they’re going to have to.
There is no American "housing crisis" — there's a supply-hoarding crisis to rig local market prices above the liquidity of local buyer capital.
The policy solution is simple: poison-pill tax all non-occupant-owned housing to force immediate sale to local buyers at actual market rates.
Allowing unlimited non-local capital to supply-hoard vacant housing is simply anti-resident eugenics. Current residents are too poor, so replace them with richer ones— even if it causes widespread homelessness, forced migration and absurd energy costs for the displaced to commute. It's as discriminatory as Federal Housing Administration redlining of black neighborhoods in the 1940s.
Another interesting proposal I've heard, and quite like is: corporations are not allowed to buy homes. Ever.
They can own them if they build them (which is necessary for organisations that build social housing, for example), but if they sell, they have to sell to people. A bank may come to own a house when the original owner can't pay the mortgage anymore, but if the bank wants to sell the house, they have to sell it to a person. Other than that, any corporation that wants to own houses, has to build them themselves thereby expanding the housing supply, instead of shrinking it by buying existing houses.
How about we vote on who gets what land, and it can't be bought or sold? Real estate can't be a product, since it's just abstract coordinates, which are there regardless of who claims it. Territory as property isn't any more valid than NFTs.
@FrenchPanda @violetmadder Because the OP stated “No one should be allowed to own a residence where they do not actually reside.” In which case my sister, occupying a house owned by her siblings (but which they’d not be permitted to own under this ‘rule’) would have to move out as she is unable to afford that house herself.
Unless your siblings are subsidizing her, she already can “afford” that house because her rent presumably already covers its capital costs and maintenance.
@Indyposterboy @FrenchPanda Dude. Stretch your brain just a little bit and think about the far-reaching consequences of such a change. Nobody would be able to hoard housing. Home prices would plummet, drastically. In fact the whole thing would best start off with a huge sweeping expansion of squatter's rights, so somebody like your sister would own the place more or less by default simply by already residing there.
The entire dynamics of housing prices and exchange would be turned inside out, and big things would shift throughout how our society works.
I can't imagine pulling the property ladder up behind me if I somehow ended up in legal possession of two houses. I'd use it to give a leg up to someone who can't manage the financing on their own the opportunity to rent-to-own. Surely the vast majority of people have someone in their family or immediate circle of friends who could benefit from help. It's not like you'd have to look far afield.
@Angle Allowing houses to become distributed hotels via "vacation rental" use (or "STR", short term rental) has locked up a significant share of existing dwelling units. Some communities have tens or hundreds of thousands of units no longer available for permanent housing. Why build new at enormous cost when the supply already exists?
@mizblueprint Mmm. I'm not entirely sure this problem can be solved by just passing laws, at least not unless you're willing to pass a lot of them. Like, the underlying problem here is that a small number of people has such a concentration of wealth and power that their minor conveniences and luxuries (Vacation Homes and short term rentals) are valued above other peoples basic necessities (Having a house to live in).
@mizblueprint And whatever laws you pass, you can expect them to run up against this basic reality. The wealthy and powerful want what they want, they don't give a damn about anyone else, and their desires will distort everything they can reach. The law, the market, the media, you name it. So, pass a law banning short term rentals, and I expect you'll start seeing loopholes, exceptions, workarounds, and just flat out lack of enforcement immediately, as long as the money demands it. :/
@mizblueprint As a friend points out though, we don't have a lot of other options. It's either try and pass laws, give up, or resort to extra-legal action - which probably means a breakdown in law and order that the rich will be most able to take advantage of... :/
@mizblueprint I suppose there's always the option of 'venture out into the wilderness to build a new society from scratch'? But that kinda requires resources and organization, and if we had that, we probably wouldn't need to do it... XD
@Angle @mizblueprint The ultimate goal (I believe) is to create a prison slave-labor class to replace the lower working class. What better way to accomplish this than outlawing homelessness and making housing totally out of reach economically.
@pamleo65 @mizblueprint It doesn't really make a difference - that system isn't going to scale well. It's just a question of how miserable things get, and when. :/
@mizblueprint Oh huh, neat! Has there been a study on the effects? Of the cities that have done this, how effectively have they actually managed to prevent the practice, and how much has it reduced housing prices?
@mizblueprint @pamleo65 I went poking around Napa on street view - it looks like it really shouldn't be that hard to build lots more housing there, if people really wanted to. Wide roads, huge parking lots, vast swathes of single family homes, etc, etc. Same as much of the rest of America. Building can be expensive, sure - but that itself is amenable to change, if people really want to change it.
@mizblueprint @pamleo65 Like most things, building gets cheaper if you do it in bulk. A small initial change in how expensive and difficult it is to build things can have outsized impact, as it ripples outwards and changes how much people build, which itself changes how easy it is to build things. Has your city ever considered dropping parking requirements, for example? Loosening zoning laws? Any of the dozens of simple and straightforwards reforms to just let people build?
Passively accepting one’s role in an unjust status quo is a perfectly reasonable survival strategy, but it doesn’t make that status quo good or just.
Your landlord isn’t providing you with housing. You are providing your landlord with housing. If landlords did not hoard more housing than they could personally use to collect feudal rents from tenants like you, then housing costs would be dramatically lower, all else being equal.
@storyworker @HeavenlyPossum @violetmadder the state, in the current model. Many cities in Europe — with Vienna being the canonical example — own a huge chunk of the rental properties, and it works very well for everyone.
Landlords, of course, in the same way that feudal peasants would have received the same answer to the same question.
I’m not telling you that you’re doing anything wrong. “The system in which we’re forced to live is unjust” doesn’t mean you’ve done anything wrong by renting. I too am a renter.
> “They have provided me more than housing - they have provided me a home, one where I have been able to dramatically rebuild what was a pretty awful life.”
No, they are using their control of a scarce resource to extract rents from you. Unless they’re renting to you at a loss, your rent is paying for the capital costs on the house—the mortgage, upkeep, etc. *You* finance their ownership of the house in which you live, with no ownership rights despite paying those capital costs.
You might also be paying them wages on top of buying them a house, if your rent is greater than those capital costs.
@HeavenlyPossum @violetmadder @storyworker I’d love a world where housing existed that did not need to be purchased but also did not need to be rented from… someone.
But I honestly cannot imagine how to create such a world, or how it would work. In the meantime, I can at least imagine there being a lot of public housing, and while that world is still flawed, it’s far less so than the one we live in now
I am not describing a labyrinth of words and concepts. You are purchasing housing for your landlord, and possibly paying them a salary in the process.
That doesn’t mean you can’t feel gratitude that you are housed. I am immensely grateful that I am housed. That doesn’t mean you can’t have a positive interpersonal relationship with your landlord. I’m not questioning your personal experience.
I would like people to be able to see things for how they really are, and landlording really is a feudal holdover.
@HeavenlyPossum fwiw I was genuinely not trying to be offensive. I’ve learned a lot from you and others, and in some cases I can use that to imagine how a different world might work. But in many others — like this one — I can’t quite. And I learned long ago not to let a better solution be blocked by the vague possibility of a perfect one.
I assume you have a more complete picture of how things could work. But I’m just having to muddle through, and usually do quite poorly here.
The only way that people can own things that they don’t personally use or occupy is through either a) the consent of everyone involved or b) institutional violence.
Landlords do not have everyone’s consent. What they do have is institutional violence—cops who will hurt you if you don’t pay a toll for living in your home, the same as medieval lords.
Remove that institutional violence and all that’s left for them is consent or, better, living in their home while you live in yours.
Medieval serfs were also taught to believe that their feudal lord had provided them the homes that those serfs had built and the farms that those serfs worked.
@lkanies @HeavenlyPossum @violetmadder @storyworker I think co-ops are a great stepping stone where one is not required to take on the full responsibility of homeownership but also is not being exploited by others
@storyworker @violetmadder People who do not pay landlords or banks for housing are typically under threat of being violently made unhoused, with all of the harms that come along with that.
Your claim is false. “The universe” did not provide you with a roof over your head. It did not suddenly appear. It did not congeal through magic. It did not accrete through natural processes. Someone made it (a builder) and someone financed it (you).
Landlords merely interject themselves into that process to collect rents—a toll, a private tax—off your need for housing.
@violetmadder @storyworker Yes, I am making the claim that “the universe provided it” is a nicely poetical metaphor but it doesn’t change the reality of how houses are built or financed.
Are you telling me that no one built your house and no one pays for it?
“Feudal exploitation is ok because the self is an illusion” is a hell of a take but it would go a long way towards explaining the survival of feudal landlording by Buddhists in Buddhist societies in which people are ostensibly eschewing the accumulation of material wealth.
Or if not “owning one’s own home,” maybe more simply “dwelling in a home without paying a toll to someone who merely owns a tollbooth guarded by a cop with a gun.”
Housing is structured in capitalist societies as, generally, a choice between *renting* and *owning,* and owning comes with its own financial and cognitive burdens. It makes sense for a lot of people to reject home ownership in the sense of capitalist hegemony in a way that wouldn’t make sense absent that structure.
You say that it is your home. Isn't it by default your business? If the current owner decides to kick you out, wouldn't that be an issue? A direct impact on your life? I still can't understand your resistance to the idea of owning your home?
Okay then. You don't care about whatever happens to you and your living place. I cannot even fathom that, and I don't understand your "complexity" but okay.
Less complex people tend to not like not having control over the place they live in. They don't like to be faced with the options of paying more and more money each year or be homeless. They would actually like being able to be sure that their home is actually their home.
It’s easier to dismiss a new and uncomfortable idea as “ideological dogma” than actually consider that your understanding is incorrect. I get that! Cheers.
Rentierism consists of a person who threatens to hurt you, or kill you, if you don’t work for them.
Sometimes it’s quite naked and explicit. Sometimes it’s obfuscated behind elaborate social rituals and fictions. By far the most common of these fictions is the ownership of some asset you need to survive. “Pay me or I will starve you to death.”
That’s it. That’s the distilled essence of rentier ownership. That’s what every rentier relationship consists of. You labor on their behalf, and in return they refrain from hurting you, or killing you. A protection racket. The only thing the rentier owner “provides” you is a promise not to hurt you, at least until the next month’s rent is due.
@HeavenlyPossum @violetmadder @storyworker I think the point you may be missing here is that not everyone has the desire to own a home. Home ownership is a lot of responsibility and work that not all may be willing or capable of doing. Home ownership also typically implies that you plan to stay somewhere long term. Should people not be allowed to live nomadically? I'm all for abolishing rentirism, but we also need to consider and plan for how to house non-home owners during our pursuit to get there.
I quite explicitly said in this thread that not wanting to own a home makes plenty of sense under capitalism, because it entails all sorts of financial and cognitive costs.
That doesn’t mean that being housed intrinsically accrues these costs, and it also doesn’t mean that rentierism somehow becomes good.
@HeavenlyPossum @storyworker @violetmadder if they don't profit, that would be incorrect and undermine all the rest you would argue from here. Why would you put a gaping hole like that in an otherwise perfectly interesting line of reasoning?
But even if we take the very narrow view of profit as income over operating expenditures, all rent is profit. The operating expenditure of ownership is effectively zero.
@HeavenlyPossum @storyworker @violetmadder Even without Capitalism I think it's valid to not want to own a house. It's not just financial and cognitove cost. There is a lot of physical required to maintain a home, and not all are physically capable of that work.
@violetmadder @storyworker @shamogan Yes, I agree. All I’ve tried to convey is that “not wanting to purchase and own a home under capitalism” is not the same as “not wanting a permanent home in the abstract,” and the latter doesn’t somehow justify rentierism.
For example, if you’re not physically capable of maintaining a house and rent instead, you’re paying a landlord rents and probably a salary to hire a worker to perform maintenance. This is not something a landlord is necessary for; the landlord is still just inserted into a transaction between you and a maintenance worker.
There’s a whole universe of mechanisms by which people could live without permanent homes and still not rely on rentier landlords.
I noted from the very beginning that being grateful for an opportunity to rent is a perfectly legitimate survival mechanism under capitalism, and that I was not criticizing this response at all. You can scroll back up through this thread to read that.
My goal is not to abolish landlords by forcing them to sell; my goal is the abolition of landlords through the decommodification of housing.
@HeavenlyPossum at low scale the costs of ownership are not negligible, and if we remove the speculative value, as we should imo, then owning something for someone else is a service with an associated fair price.
I think the root causes are not the ownership itself, but:
1. Human rights to shelter are not guaranteed properly, 2. Artificial scarcity and unfair prices are allowed.
If the private ownership would be limited, the service of owning shelters should be provided still.
@HeavenlyPossum @storyworker @violetmadder and so I believe what @storyworker was expressing is that they are glad they have renting as an alternative to owning, and as someone who does not want to own, they we're asking if you removed all the landlords, how would they get access to housing, if not thorugh renting. Which is a valid question, in my opinion.
@HeavenlyPossum @storyworker @violetmadder To bring this around to the original post, which calls for a "poison-pill tax" to force non-occupant owned homes to sell to at lower prices, there is a group being forgotten in this strategy: the current renters of these homes. Many of these renters would still not be the ones able to afford (or willing) to buy those homes. So if this policy we're to be followed without also investing in alternative housing options, such as co-ops, we would see a displacement of current residents renting in that area to those who have the will and means to buy.
@HeavenlyPossum @violetmadder @storyworker That's great that is your goal but that's not what is being talked about in the original post, which is what they commented on
But why can't you afford a home while you can afford to rent? That is part of the problem. Why is your rent enough for the landlord to be able to afford it, but is the same amount of money not enough for you to be able to afford it?
Mind you, there's absolutely a good case to be made why rent should still exist. Some people move around a lot and having to buy and sell homes everywhere is a pain. Rent has to exist.
And cheap, rent-controlled appartments definitely fill an important role too. But at some point you start getting a two-tiered society where a shrinking group of people own everything and rent it to the rest for extortionate prices, and that's what we need to get out of.
@Angle @mizblueprint @pamleo65 I’ve been through Napa a few times, when I lived in Sonoma County (to the west). Your impression from Street View is correct. But it is surrounded by vineyards, many of which are run by “lifestyle vintners,” who want their chalets and their labels and everything except good wine.
And they have money, lots and lots and lots of money.
Ericka Simone
Als Antwort auf JA Westenberg • • •teilten dies erneut
Coach Pāṇini ® hat dies geteilt.
Sashin
Als Antwort auf Ericka Simone • • •Dave Spector
Als Antwort auf JA Westenberg • • •this is a crisis created by private equity firms who’ve spent hundreds of billions hovering up every kind of housing stock across the country, as well as trailer parks and apartment complexes
Then, they’ll do what they always do: squeeze every last dollar out of the asset — then they’ll leave hollowed out towns/neighborhoods with destroyed housing stock when they’re done and then demand huge tax breaks for their ill-gotten gains.
Unregulated capitalism is social darnwinism writ large.
diana 🏳️⚧️🦋🌱 hat dies geteilt.
Jo-stands on guard, elbows up.
Als Antwort auf Dave Spector • • •Dave Mandl
Unbekannter Ursprungsbeitrag • • •Gurre Vildskägg
Als Antwort auf JA Westenberg • • •sure, do all that. But also: build more effin' housing. Build it sustainably: full walkability & bikeability, dense enough to support local shops & services for daily needs within walking distance, dense enough and with a structure to make quality transit a real thing, and with parks etc.
#UrbanizeTheSuburbs #yimby
Cainmark Does Not Comply 🚲 hat dies geteilt.
Wren Reilly
Als Antwort auf JA Westenberg • • •Nicklas Johnson 🏳️🌈
Als Antwort auf JA Westenberg • • •We also need to ban corporations from buying single-family homes.
I was told a while back that Meta was on a buying spree in and around our neighborhood, buying up houses with cash, pushing real living and breathing people out of the market.
@CassandraVert
teilten dies erneut
SufferForMe 🆘 hat dies geteilt.
Gurre Vildskägg
Unbekannter Ursprungsbeitrag • • •I've seen a few. They are WILD.
It's more scam than construction.
Gurre Vildskägg
Als Antwort auf Gurre Vildskägg • • •that is to say:
construction rules & inspections are a must. That last major earthquake in Turkey? the city that handled it well, few building collapses etc, they actually had inspectors that did their jobs and politicians that backed them up.
Alon
Als Antwort auf JA Westenberg • • •Chris
Als Antwort auf Alon • • •He's proposing a tax so people can become homeowners.
MacCruiskeen
Als Antwort auf Chris • • •Alon
Als Antwort auf MacCruiskeen • • •MacCruiskeen
Als Antwort auf Alon • • •Alon
Als Antwort auf MacCruiskeen • • •SOCDS Building Permits Database
socds.huduser.govMacCruiskeen
Als Antwort auf Alon • • •cy
Als Antwort auf JA Westenberg • • •lin11c
Als Antwort auf JA Westenberg • • •Kevin Severud
Als Antwort auf JA Westenberg • • •AltTxt:
There is no American "housing crisis" — there's a supply-hoarding crisis to rig local market prices above the liquidity of local buyer capital.
The policy solution is simple: poison-pill tax all non-occupant-owned housing to force immediate sale to local buyers at actual market rates.
Allowing unlimited non-local capital to supply-hoard vacant housing is simply anti-resident eugenics. Current residents are too poor, so replace them with richer ones— even if it causes widespread homelessness, forced migration and absurd energy costs for the displaced to commute. It's as discriminatory as Federal Housing Administration redlining of black neighborhoods in the 1940s.
teilten dies erneut
Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦 hat dies geteilt.
Potung Thul
Als Antwort auf Kevin Severud • • •Tag that post (to which I am replying) with #AltText and #Alt4You so blind people can find it.
Kim Possible
Als Antwort auf JA Westenberg • • •Martijn Vos
Als Antwort auf JA Westenberg • •Another interesting proposal I've heard, and quite like is: corporations are not allowed to buy homes. Ever.
They can own them if they build them (which is necessary for organisations that build social housing, for example), but if they sell, they have to sell to people. A bank may come to own a house when the original owner can't pay the mortgage anymore, but if the bank wants to sell the house, they have to sell it to a person. Other than that, any corporation that wants to own houses, has to build them themselves thereby expanding the housing supply, instead of shrinking it by buying existing houses.
mögen das
Light~Angel, hex, Fabio G. und spacer mögen das.
teilten dies erneut
Light~Angel, hex, Fabio G. und Fly-paper-love-maker haben dies geteilt.
cy
Als Antwort auf Martijn Vos • • •Violet Madder
Als Antwort auf JA Westenberg • • •No one should be allowed to own a residence where they do not actually reside.
That alone would change all KINDS of things.
teilten dies erneut
HeavenlyPossum und Sashin haben dies geteilt.
cy
Als Antwort auf Violet Madder • • •Furthermore, no one should be allowed to own a business where they do not bizz!
@Daojoan@mastodon.social
Colin Dunn
Als Antwort auf Violet Madder • • •HeavenlyPossum
Als Antwort auf Colin Dunn • • •Your siblings would render their sister homeless, possibly to die?
Panda Cab
Als Antwort auf Colin Dunn • • •@Indyposterboy
How so?
@violetmadder @Daojoan
Colin Dunn
Als Antwort auf Panda Cab • • •HeavenlyPossum
Als Antwort auf Colin Dunn • • •@violetmadder @FrenchPanda @Indyposterboy
Unless your siblings are subsidizing her, she already can “afford” that house because her rent presumably already covers its capital costs and maintenance.
Violet Madder
Als Antwort auf Colin Dunn • • •@Indyposterboy @FrenchPanda
Dude. Stretch your brain just a little bit and think about the far-reaching consequences of such a change. Nobody would be able to hoard housing. Home prices would plummet, drastically. In fact the whole thing would best start off with a huge sweeping expansion of squatter's rights, so somebody like your sister would own the place more or less by default simply by already residing there.
The entire dynamics of housing prices and exchange would be turned inside out, and big things would shift throughout how our society works.
HeavenlyPossum
Als Antwort auf Violet Madder • • •@Indyposterboy @violetmadder @FrenchPanda
Could they not just…give her the house?
benda
Als Antwort auf HeavenlyPossum • • •mnemonicoverload
Als Antwort auf HeavenlyPossum • • •mizblueprint
Als Antwort auf JA Westenberg • • •Allowing houses to become distributed hotels via "vacation rental" use (or "STR", short term rental) has locked up a significant share of existing dwelling units. Some communities have tens or hundreds of thousands of units no longer available for permanent housing. Why build new at enormous cost when the supply already exists?
David Benfell, Ph.D. (he/him/his) hat dies geteilt.
Angle
Als Antwort auf mizblueprint • • •teilten dies erneut
Angle und David Benfell, Ph.D. (he/him/his) haben dies geteilt.
Angle
Als Antwort auf Angle • • •David Benfell, Ph.D. (he/him/his) hat dies geteilt.
Angle
Als Antwort auf Angle • • •Angle
Als Antwort auf Angle • • •pam_1965
Als Antwort auf Angle • • •The ultimate goal (I believe) is to create a prison slave-labor class to replace the lower working class. What better way to accomplish this than outlawing homelessness and making housing totally out of reach economically.
Angle
Als Antwort auf pam_1965 • • •pam_1965
Als Antwort auf Angle • • •I hope you're right.
Angle
Als Antwort auf pam_1965 • • •argv minus one
Als Antwort auf JA Westenberg • • •clacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛
Als Antwort auf argv minus one • • •@argv minus one @Joan Westenberg Everyone? I sure hope not!
I didn't look at the details, but it sounded to me like he wanted to recreate the subprime mortgage crisis.
cy
Als Antwort auf clacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛 • • •Angle
Unbekannter Ursprungsbeitrag • • •Angle
Unbekannter Ursprungsbeitrag • • •Angle
Als Antwort auf Angle • • •Darwin Woodka hat dies geteilt.
HeavenlyPossum
Unbekannter Ursprungsbeitrag • • •But they are profiting from your rent. That’s what rent is.
HeavenlyPossum
Unbekannter Ursprungsbeitrag • • •@violetmadder @storyworker
Passively accepting one’s role in an unjust status quo is a perfectly reasonable survival strategy, but it doesn’t make that status quo good or just.
Your landlord isn’t providing you with housing. You are providing your landlord with housing. If landlords did not hoard more housing than they could personally use to collect feudal rents from tenants like you, then housing costs would be dramatically lower, all else being equal.
Luke Kanies
Unbekannter Ursprungsbeitrag • • •HeavenlyPossum
Unbekannter Ursprungsbeitrag • • •@storyworker @violetmadder
> “from whom am I to rent?”
Landlords, of course, in the same way that feudal peasants would have received the same answer to the same question.
I’m not telling you that you’re doing anything wrong. “The system in which we’re forced to live is unjust” doesn’t mean you’ve done anything wrong by renting. I too am a renter.
> “They have provided me more than housing - they have provided me a home, one where I have been able to dramatically rebuild what was a pretty awful life.”
No, they are using their control of a scarce resource to extract rents from you. Unless they’re renting to you at a loss, your rent is paying for the capital costs on the house—the mortgage, upkeep, etc. *You* finance their ownership of the house in which you live, with no ownership rights despite paying those capital costs.
You might also be paying them wages on top of buying them a house, if your rent is greater than those capital costs.
HeavenlyPossum
Als Antwort auf Luke Kanies • • •@violetmadder @lkanies @storyworker
That’s just trading an individual landlord for a corporate landlord.
Luke Kanies
Als Antwort auf HeavenlyPossum • • •Luke Kanies
Als Antwort auf HeavenlyPossum • • •@HeavenlyPossum @violetmadder @storyworker I’d love a world where housing existed that did not need to be purchased but also did not need to be rented from… someone.
But I honestly cannot imagine how to create such a world, or how it would work. In the meantime, I can at least imagine there being a lot of public housing, and while that world is still flawed, it’s far less so than the one we live in now
HeavenlyPossum
Als Antwort auf Luke Kanies • • •@lkanies @storyworker @violetmadder
I have not proposed recreating the universe.
Luke Kanies
Als Antwort auf HeavenlyPossum • • •HeavenlyPossum
Unbekannter Ursprungsbeitrag • • •@storyworker @violetmadder
I am not describing a labyrinth of words and concepts. You are purchasing housing for your landlord, and possibly paying them a salary in the process.
That doesn’t mean you can’t feel gratitude that you are housed. I am immensely grateful that I am housed. That doesn’t mean you can’t have a positive interpersonal relationship with your landlord. I’m not questioning your personal experience.
I would like people to be able to see things for how they really are, and landlording really is a feudal holdover.
HeavenlyPossum
Als Antwort auf Luke Kanies • • •Ok
Luke Kanies
Als Antwort auf HeavenlyPossum • • •@HeavenlyPossum fwiw I was genuinely not trying to be offensive. I’ve learned a lot from you and others, and in some cases I can use that to imagine how a different world might work. But in many others — like this one — I can’t quite. And I learned long ago not to let a better solution be blocked by the vague possibility of a perfect one.
I assume you have a more complete picture of how things could work. But I’m just having to muddle through, and usually do quite poorly here.
HeavenlyPossum
Unbekannter Ursprungsbeitrag • • •@storyworker @violetmadder
The only way that people can own things that they don’t personally use or occupy is through either a) the consent of everyone involved or b) institutional violence.
Landlords do not have everyone’s consent. What they do have is institutional violence—cops who will hurt you if you don’t pay a toll for living in your home, the same as medieval lords.
Remove that institutional violence and all that’s left for them is consent or, better, living in their home while you live in yours.
HeavenlyPossum
Unbekannter Ursprungsbeitrag • • •@storyworker @violetmadder
Medieval serfs were also taught to believe that their feudal lord had provided them the homes that those serfs had built and the farms that those serfs worked.
Shannon
Als Antwort auf Luke Kanies • • •I think co-ops are a great stepping stone where one is not required to take on the full responsibility of homeownership but also is not being exploited by others
HeavenlyPossum
Unbekannter Ursprungsbeitrag • • •@storyworker @violetmadder
I have quite explicitly told you that I am not criticizing you for your choices.
Consent given under duress, however, is not freely given.
HeavenlyPossum
Unbekannter Ursprungsbeitrag • • •@violetmadder @storyworker
The universe did not give you a roof over your head. A builder constructed it and you are financing its costs and upkeep.
HeavenlyPossum
Unbekannter Ursprungsbeitrag • • •People who do not pay landlords or banks for housing are typically under threat of being violently made unhoused, with all of the harms that come along with that.
HeavenlyPossum
Unbekannter Ursprungsbeitrag • • •@violetmadder @storyworker
Your claim is false. “The universe” did not provide you with a roof over your head. It did not suddenly appear. It did not congeal through magic. It did not accrete through natural processes. Someone made it (a builder) and someone financed it (you).
Landlords merely interject themselves into that process to collect rents—a toll, a private tax—off your need for housing.
HeavenlyPossum
Unbekannter Ursprungsbeitrag • • •@violetmadder @storyworker
Yes, I am making the claim that “the universe provided it” is a nicely poetical metaphor but it doesn’t change the reality of how houses are built or financed.
Are you telling me that no one built your house and no one pays for it?
HeavenlyPossum
Unbekannter Ursprungsbeitrag • • •@violetmadder @storyworker
It is your business because it is your home and you are financing its costs through your rent while accruing no ownership over it.
HeavenlyPossum
Als Antwort auf HeavenlyPossum • • •@storyworker @violetmadder
“Feudal exploitation is ok because the self is an illusion” is a hell of a take but it would go a long way towards explaining the survival of feudal landlording by Buddhists in Buddhist societies in which people are ostensibly eschewing the accumulation of material wealth.
HeavenlyPossum
Unbekannter Ursprungsbeitrag • • •@violetmadder @storyworker
I’m sorry that this has upset you so much, to hear how landlording actually works
HeavenlyPossum
Als Antwort auf HeavenlyPossum • • •@storyworker @violetmadder
“I don't wish to own this building”
That’s good because men with guns will prevent you from doing so, even though you are financing it yourself.
HeavenlyPossum
Unbekannter Ursprungsbeitrag • • •Yes!!!
HeavenlyPossum
Unbekannter Ursprungsbeitrag • • •@violetmadder @storyworker @FrenchPanda
Or if not “owning one’s own home,” maybe more simply “dwelling in a home without paying a toll to someone who merely owns a tollbooth guarded by a cop with a gun.”
Housing is structured in capitalist societies as, generally, a choice between *renting* and *owning,* and owning comes with its own financial and cognitive burdens. It makes sense for a lot of people to reject home ownership in the sense of capitalist hegemony in a way that wouldn’t make sense absent that structure.
Panda Cab
Unbekannter Ursprungsbeitrag • • •@storyworker
You say that it is your home. Isn't it by default your business? If the current owner decides to kick you out, wouldn't that be an issue? A direct impact on your life? I still can't understand your resistance to the idea of owning your home?
@HeavenlyPossum @violetmadder @Daojoan
HeavenlyPossum
Unbekannter Ursprungsbeitrag • • •@storyworker @violetmadder
Are you unfamiliar with the concept of being wrong?
HeavenlyPossum
Unbekannter Ursprungsbeitrag • • •@FrenchPanda @violetmadder @storyworker
You don’t at all get to decide—your landlord owns the home, with all the coercive state authority that comes with that particular legal institution.
Panda Cab
Unbekannter Ursprungsbeitrag • • •@storyworker
Okay then. You don't care about whatever happens to you and your living place. I cannot even fathom that, and I don't understand your "complexity" but okay.
Less complex people tend to not like not having control over the place they live in. They don't like to be faced with the options of paying more and more money each year or be homeless. They would actually like being able to be sure that their home is actually their home.
@HeavenlyPossum @violetmadder @Daojoan
HeavenlyPossum
Unbekannter Ursprungsbeitrag • • •@violetmadder @storyworker @FrenchPanda
It’s easier to dismiss a new and uncomfortable idea as “ideological dogma” than actually consider that your understanding is incorrect. I get that! Cheers.
HeavenlyPossum
Unbekannter Ursprungsbeitrag • • •@violetmadder @storyworker
Yes. I have repeatedly and explicitly endorsed your subjective experience of your landlord as positive.
cy mag das.
HeavenlyPossum
Als Antwort auf Panda Cab • • •@violetmadder @FrenchPanda @storyworker
Rentierism consists of a person who threatens to hurt you, or kill you, if you don’t work for them.
Sometimes it’s quite naked and explicit. Sometimes it’s obfuscated behind elaborate social rituals and fictions. By far the most common of these fictions is the ownership of some asset you need to survive. “Pay me or I will starve you to death.”
That’s it. That’s the distilled essence of rentier ownership. That’s what every rentier relationship consists of. You labor on their behalf, and in return they refrain from hurting you, or killing you. A protection racket. The only thing the rentier owner “provides” you is a promise not to hurt you, at least until the next month’s rent is due.
Most people don’t like that.
teilten dies erneut
HeavenlyPossum, Sashin und Tofu Golem haben dies geteilt.
levampyre
Als Antwort auf HeavenlyPossum • • •HeavenlyPossum
Als Antwort auf levampyre • • •@levampyre @storyworker @violetmadder @FrenchPanda
Yes—the capitalist, the warlord, the landlord, the banker, the mafioso, the king, etc, are all variations on a central theme.
Shannon
Als Antwort auf HeavenlyPossum • • •I think the point you may be missing here is that not everyone has the desire to own a home. Home ownership is a lot of responsibility and work that not all may be willing or capable of doing. Home ownership also typically implies that you plan to stay somewhere long term. Should people not be allowed to live nomadically? I'm all for abolishing rentirism, but we also need to consider and plan for how to house non-home owners during our pursuit to get there.
HeavenlyPossum
Als Antwort auf Shannon • • •@shamogan @storyworker @violetmadder
I quite explicitly said in this thread that not wanting to own a home makes plenty of sense under capitalism, because it entails all sorts of financial and cognitive costs.
That doesn’t mean that being housed intrinsically accrues these costs, and it also doesn’t mean that rentierism somehow becomes good.
⁂iwein⁂
Als Antwort auf HeavenlyPossum • • •HeavenlyPossum
Als Antwort auf ⁂iwein⁂ • • •@storyworker @violetmadder @iwein
Even if landlords are operating “at cost,” they are probably acquiring equity.
If they’re not even acquiring equity, they’re probably just really bad at landlording.
HeavenlyPossum
Als Antwort auf HeavenlyPossum • • •@storyworker @iwein @violetmadder
But even if we take the very narrow view of profit as income over operating expenditures, all rent is profit. The operating expenditure of ownership is effectively zero.
Shannon
Als Antwort auf HeavenlyPossum • • •Even without Capitalism I think it's valid to not want to own a house. It's not just financial and cognitove cost. There is a lot of physical required to maintain a home, and not all are physically capable of that work.
HeavenlyPossum
Als Antwort auf Shannon • • •@violetmadder @storyworker @shamogan
Yes, I agree. All I’ve tried to convey is that “not wanting to purchase and own a home under capitalism” is not the same as “not wanting a permanent home in the abstract,” and the latter doesn’t somehow justify rentierism.
For example, if you’re not physically capable of maintaining a house and rent instead, you’re paying a landlord rents and probably a salary to hire a worker to perform maintenance. This is not something a landlord is necessary for; the landlord is still just inserted into a transaction between you and a maintenance worker.
There’s a whole universe of mechanisms by which people could live without permanent homes and still not rely on rentier landlords.
cy mag das.
cy hat dies geteilt.
HeavenlyPossum
Unbekannter Ursprungsbeitrag • • •@violetmadder @shamogan @storyworker
I noted from the very beginning that being grateful for an opportunity to rent is a perfectly legitimate survival mechanism under capitalism, and that I was not criticizing this response at all. You can scroll back up through this thread to read that.
My goal is not to abolish landlords by forcing them to sell; my goal is the abolition of landlords through the decommodification of housing.
⁂iwein⁂
Als Antwort auf HeavenlyPossum • • •@HeavenlyPossum at low scale the costs of ownership are not negligible, and if we remove the speculative value, as we should imo, then owning something for someone else is a service with an associated fair price.
I think the root causes are not the ownership itself, but:
1. Human rights to shelter are not guaranteed properly,
2. Artificial scarcity and unfair prices are allowed.
If the private ownership would be limited, the service of owning shelters should be provided still.
Shannon
Unbekannter Ursprungsbeitrag • • •Shannon
Als Antwort auf Shannon • • •To bring this around to the original post, which calls for a "poison-pill tax" to force non-occupant owned homes to sell to at lower prices, there is a group being forgotten in this strategy: the current renters of these homes. Many of these renters would still not be the ones able to afford (or willing) to buy those homes. So if this policy we're to be followed without also investing in alternative housing options, such as co-ops, we would see a displacement of current residents renting in that area to those who have the will and means to buy.
HeavenlyPossum
Als Antwort auf ⁂iwein⁂ • • •@iwein
Private ownership is artificial scarcity.
Aside from any property taxes or cadastral registry, the cost of ownership is effectively zero.
Owning something for someone else is not a service.
Shannon
Als Antwort auf HeavenlyPossum • • •That's great that is your goal but that's not what is being talked about in the original post, which is what they commented on
HeavenlyPossum
Als Antwort auf Shannon • • •Ok
Martijn Vos
Unbekannter Ursprungsbeitrag • •@story worker
But why can't you afford a home while you can afford to rent? That is part of the problem. Why is your rent enough for the landlord to be able to afford it, but is the same amount of money not enough for you to be able to afford it?
Mind you, there's absolutely a good case to be made why rent should still exist. Some people move around a lot and having to buy and sell homes everywhere is a pain. Rent has to exist.
And cheap, rent-controlled appartments definitely fill an important role too. But at some point you start getting a two-tiered society where a shrinking group of people own everything and rent it to the rest for extortionate prices, and that's what we need to get out of.
cy
Als Antwort auf HeavenlyPossum • • •(and property taxes are also artificial scarcity)
@iwein@mas.to
David Benfell, Ph.D. (he/him/his)
Als Antwort auf Angle • • •@Angle @mizblueprint @pamleo65 I’ve been through Napa a few times, when I lived in Sonoma County (to the west). Your impression from Street View is correct. But it is surrounded by vineyards, many of which are run by “lifestyle vintners,” who want their chalets and their labels and everything except good wine.
And they have money, lots and lots and lots of money.